jueves, abril 01, 2010

Before you read the following is just a translation of a post I wrote some 3 years ago, in Spanish. I believe this is one of my best posts, and since I've run out of inspiration, I've decided to just translate this one so my non-spanish friends can also try to feel what I wanted to express.

Please don't hate me for this crude translation, I know it might even sound weird... Blame it on my little sleep, my lack of practice, and Google Translate!

This is the worst coffee I've tasted in my life.

The workers and other pedestrians at the airport are starting to look at me in an even stranger way... after all, all they can see is a character with two backpacks, a red dragon hanging from one of them, with a 2-week beard and disheveled hair, serving his fourteenth bag of sugar in his supposed-to-be iced coffee.

But it is the worst coffee I've tasted in my life.

All day looking for the perfect thing for the moment, for my very last few hours in this city... have a hot dog! no... go to Wendys! but... then I'll get fat! best thing to do, going to Central Park, and then I can play frisbee... but then I will be wasting time! I won't be able to do other things! but... what? I needed to live (or relive) a thousand moments in just 3 hours...

God, if only I had 2 more days... even better, 2 weeks... or 2 months, so I could cross the country all the way to California... but then it'd be the same, I'd have to go back home afterwards still...And it is not that I dont want to go back. I have a lot to get back to there, at home, but... the feeling of freedom, of independence, of having nothing to do and wanting to do everything, everything new, everything different... no one who knows me, no one who may think anything of what I say or do... or that I would care, for that matter.

I have decided to waste some minutes walking once more through the avenues. Trying to keep alive the flame of this trip that is already being put out. Did I manage to do so?

Streets superimposing, buildings trying to cover each other, like a kids' competition, getting on their tip-toes to see who is taller. Back on the ground, trees as the grandpas, don't get involved in the game and stay quiet and calm, letting the wind swing their arms... and below them, human ants. Much more human than how they have always been pictured. All them with stories, adventures, misadventures, pasts, presents, futures. All them looking forward, but not avoiding looking on the sides to the rest, looking after the community, preserving the magic, saving the calm and the speed of the city, preserving the magic.And among those ants... there I am. Hating them for having the luck of living in such city. Hate? No. Envy. I want to stay with them, see how a naive glance to my backpack brings a smile to kids and grown-ups; the imaptience of a family to finally get to the beach; feel the sweat on my face after walking through the Brooklyn Bridge; get infected by the relaxation of Bryant Park...

in Central Park, it rains for a minute. I want to believe that the sky is crying for my departure; I deny it instantly: it just wants to show me that that 5th Avenue, with its flags, its taxis, its carriages and its Apple Store, is as beautiful, as elegant as always, even with dark clouds that would spoil any other wonder.

I give my goodbyes to the scene, of course, taking a picture:

...

Did I manage to brighten my day, even though it was departure day? Well, it is the worst coffee I've tasted in my life...